Issues You Can Check Yourself
-Horses that are touchy around their ears
or that are hard to bridle​-
If there is truly nothing in the ear bothering the horse, it's almost always caused from the nuchal ligament.
The good news is - it's completely fixable!
Once the horse is balanced and the nuchal ligament is not pulled tight, the pain goes away completely. The best way to find out if that ligament is tight at all is to bend the tip of the horse's ear down. If they will let you fold the top of their ear down, then the ligament is fine. If it's tight even a little bit, they won't like it when you try to fold it.
Try it for yourself......
"Cinchy" Horses​
There are quite a few things that can contribute to making a horse "cinchy." But, the majority of the time the main contributing factor is that the horse's rib cage is rotated causing tight and sore muscles under the cinch area.
Have you ever felt like one stirrup is a hole longer than the other when riding your horse? That's a good indication your horse's rib cage is not "square."
This is fixable and after balancing the "cinchiness" should go away.
Wither Soreness
Pain in the soft tissue beside the withers typically has nothing to do with the withers themselves. (Unless a saddle is too tight and has been pinching there.)
You should be able to drag your fingers across the trapezius muscle as hard as you want to and the horse should not flinch or care.
Try it for yourself. If your horse has pain there, you have a first rib issue causing the shoulder blade to be out of balance which causes a tight and sore trapezius muscle.
Again, completely fixable.
